And certainly beats the everloving tar out of the way a lot of Maine towns did/do where they had/have paper mills. Bleh.

The first time I smelled the by-products of a paper mill, I almost threw up in the car. I love Charleston, but not that damn bridge.

The first time I smelled the by-products of a paper mill, I almost threw up in the car.

This was every rainy day (or when the wind was the "right" direction) while I was growing up. The 'Scogger (The Androscoggin River) was one of the ten most polluted rivers in the country at one point. Never caught on fire, though.

Oh, and another overpowering funk: Haymarket (or any Chinatown I've been to) in the late afternoon on a humid summer day. Gag-inducing.

Milwaukee has the potential for the funkiest smelling city, IMO (brenda, do you agree?). During my freshman year at Marquette, October 1984 had a bizarre weather pattern in which a low front hung out in the area for most of the month. Fog, no fresh air blowing, and continuing production from the tanneries to the west, the (at the time operating) Pabst Brewery to the north, Ambrosia Chocolate Factory to the northeast, and the lake to the east meant that city reeked for weeks on end.

Heh, Kathy, I was just scrolling down to respond to this:

Dead bloated poagies (the nickname of a local garbage fish that died en masse one year in Maine and spent the rest of the season floating and getting washed in by the tide).

With the schools of dead alewives that wash up on the beach most summers.

There's also that spot on the Marquette interchange where the hops-roasting plant is, though I like that smell. The industrial valley/tannery area also used to produce a scent as you went over it on the highway that my little brother quite aptly named "fish poo-pants."

I'm trying to remember if the Lake Ste Claire fish fly infestation smelled. I seem to recall it having done so, but the bigger issue was the encrustation of winged insects on everything.

What velcro wants to be when it grows up.

I think my dad set the world's record for bad smells back when he was in the Army in Germany in the late 50s. Dropped a limburger cheese sandwich behind a bureau and left it for more than a day in an un-air-conditioned apartment.

I can see the Weekly World News headline - "I had Vincent Gallo's Minotaur Baby!"

Really, wouldn't having a Minotaur be a welcome relief compared to a baby that might inherit Gallo's personality?

Matt's dad wins.

Speaking of bad smells, DeLay's aide reveals the playbook: [link]

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

I think my dad set the world's record for bad smells back when he was in the Army in Germany in the late 50s. Dropped a limburger cheese sandwich behind a bureau and left it for more than a day in an un-air-conditioned apartment.

I may have that beat - when we went on Xmas holiday during college, at our dorm we had to close the rooms up, leave the heat on and unplug any appliances. A friend of mine decided to leave his mini-fridge on because it had a gallon of milk in it. At some point after he'd left, the RA unplugged the fridge when they checked all the rooms just before the holidays. I was there when he got back two weeks later and opened the fridge door without realizing it had been unplugged; we figured out that it had in a hurry.

"fish poo-pants."

Ew. A small country of ew.

I really don't like BusinessObjects. Really. Don't. Like. Way too many options and I have difficulty making decisions. Grr.

"fish poo-pants."

Ew. A small country of ew.

Really very evocative, isn't it? Not bad for a 5-year-old, or whatever age he was at the time.